The first South American country to join the OECD, Chile is one to the fastest growing Latin American economies. But despite making considerable progress in reducing poverty, inequality is still a massive challenge needing to be faced.
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This paper has two primary objectives.
The first objective is to describe our method for predicting
the counterfactual outcomes, and explain the reasons for
this ch... Show More +oice. The second is to present estimates of the
counterfactual outcomes. The paper contains the following
sections. Section two provides a description of the voucher
system before the introduction of SEP (Subvencion Escolar
Preferencial program, or Preferential School Subsidy), an
explanation of the main components of SEP, and a summary of
other educational reforms currently undergoing Parliamentary
review, for which SEP may serve as a valuable pilot. In
section three, we present the methodological approach
employed in this paper to predict the counterfactual
outcomes to which actual outcomes under SEP will be
compared. Section four describes the data on students and
schools used in this paper. This section also provides
information on the distributions of grade four priority
students and non-priority students among the nation's
three types of elementary schools in the years 2005-2007 and
predictions of what these distributions will have been in
2008 in the absence of SEP. Section five describes the
distributions of achievement of priority students and
non-priority students on SIMCE tests of Spanish,
mathematics, and natural and social sciences administered at
the end of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 school years, and
predictions of what the average achievement scores for each
group will have been in 2008 had SEP not been introduced.
Section six describes trends in achievement gaps between
priority and non-priority students and trends in the
decomposition of these gaps into within- and between-school
differences. Section seven summarizes the key findings from
the baseline data analysis. It also describes research
agenda for evaluating the initial impacts of SEP on the
distribution of schools attended by Priority students and on
the achievement of priority students on the SIMCE tests. Show Less -

The main objective of this report is to
present the Government of Chile with policy options related
to the institutional distribution of roles and
responsibilities ... Show More +for effective quality assurance in
education. Following the introduction, the report is
structured as follows. Chapter II presents background
information on the evolution of Chile's education
system since 1980. This information, together with an
analysis of the current situation of the education sector,
describes the motivation for the study and demonstrates the
urgent need to shift the focus in education policy to
quality assurance. Chapter III describes the conceptual
framework developed for the analysis of how successful
systems carry out education quality assurance. The framework
developed identifies education participants, including:
students; teachers; principals and school administrators;
schools; local governments (districts, municipalities);
regional governments (states, provinces); and the national
government. Chapter IV applies the framework to the nine
education systems selected as comparisons and presents a
summary of the quality assurance functions and institutions
in each selected education system. Chapter V describes the
four alternative instructional visions for quality assurance
in education developed as a result of the international
review. Finally, Chapter VI presents policy options for the
distribution of roles and responsibilities for education
quality assurance across individuals and/or institutions,
which vary depending on the instructional vision followed. Show Less -